It is with admirable insight and incontrovertible reasoning that Taine shows the logical untenableness and practical mischief of the theory of equality, both in the writings of Rousseau and the action of the Constituent Assembly. He proves the contradiction between this equality and the very nature of man, and how, consequently, pure democracy rendered the development of political liberty unattainable. In perfect agreement with Tocqueville, he points to the absolute necessity, under the circumstances of the time, of aristocratic institutions, for the creation and preservation of a free State, and explains how deeply seated these are in the needs and claims of human nature. This portion of his work is indeed masterly; and the more widely extended the equalitarian superstition among the Liberal parties of our day, the more one could desire Taine's views to exercise a strong and wide-spread influence. But, on the other hand, it appears to me that by this very conception of political institutions, our author has been led to show himself something more than just in the sentence he passes on the representatives of this period, the nobles and prelates of 1789. This is one of the few incongruities already alluded to between the first and second volume. After reading of the luxury, artificiality, and idleness of aristocratic society in the former, and coming with the author to the conviction that terrible consequences must attend such a condition, one is surprised to find in the latter that these privileged ones were the best, the most discerning and patriotic portion of the nation, whose annihilation or exile brought about the same injurious results that the expulsion of the Huguenots had done. This contradiction is not cleared up by the fact that in the years immediately preceding the Revolution, and chiefly through the influence of Rousseau, a sentimental humanity had prevailed in high circles, that here, too, it was the fashion to speak of a return to an idyllic life of nature, of universal brotherly love, and of the relief of every form of distress. For these transformations remained, in point of fact, only fanciful phrases of the salons. When Louis XVI., Turgot, and Calonne, really desired to set about such philanthropic reforms in good earnest, it was, as we have already seen, these sentimental nobles themselves who hindered their effort, and by nullifying reform brought about the Revolution. When the catastrophe came, many of them had sufficient insight into the new position of affairs to make haste and repudiate those privileges which throughout the land had been already trampled under foot by an unchained people. The horrible persecution to which they were subjected, in utter disregard of all existing rights and all human feeling, with bloodthirsty cruelty and shameless greed, must ever insure for the victims the compassion and sympathy of every right-minded observer; and in order fully to justify revolutionary laws against emigrants, one